Every now and again I touch on the problems faced by dual-career couples who are trying to land real jobs in the same geographical location. This is a topic of many faces since in touches on the problem of getting a job in the first place, family and couple dynamics, gender politics and other tricky subjects.
Many workplaces, including Universities, have policies in place to discourage people hiring their own family members or from becoming direct supervisors of their family members. For all of the obvious reasons of fair employment conditions for all workers, fair opportunity to be hired for a given position and the like.
And yet many areas of science are littered with couples who work together. In the same lab or department. Sometimes just in the same University. Sometimes one spouse is actually the direct employee of the other. How has this been accomplished?
Our good blog friend DamnGoodTechnician had a recent post on institutional nepotism rules in which she tracked down some published policies. This is never enough information, however, since there seem to always be loopholes. Head on over to DGT's place and offer your experiences, will ya?